


The Dueling Man

by JustAWritingAmateur



Category: The Music Man - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAWritingAmateur/pseuds/JustAWritingAmateur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Next in the WritingAmateur "Yusical" series comes a crossover between "The Music Man" and our favorite anime about a children's card game. Con man Seto Kaiba comes to Domino Town looking to make a quick buck, yet the stubborn town citizens, and the intriguing art teacher Ishizu Ishtar, end up giving him more than he bargained for. Seto x Ishizu, et al.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rock Island

April 28, 1915

The steam train puttered down the track smoothly, steam rising from its chimney in perfect cloudlike bursts and puffs. The gentle countryside raced on by—fields, farms, buildings, church steeples, entire little forgotten towns, all eclipsed, blurred, mere afterthoughts, rendered into memory by the seemingly endless onward motion of the locomotive.

The American Midwest certainly had its quaint charms, he supposed.

He turned his face away from the window, away from the greenery and yellowing mass, and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose to ward off what had to be an oncoming headache. The lighting in the train was too bright, the wooden bench in the corner of the car he was perched on too stiff and splintered, the other people in the car too damned chatty, too well-dressed for his liking. Did they have to rub it in—their ease with which they moved through life, their perfectly-folded pocket squares and expensively woven boater hats, while he had to smile uncomfortably, always the pretender in another type of man's clothes?

The train soon came to a stop, the whirring of the wheels on the railroad quieted. He

One of these empty suits, one of the many traveling salesmen who seemed to caw and natter on ceaselessly in this car like vultures on a carcass, had tried to flash a smile in his direction as he had embarked, jostling his rather threadbare suitcase in the process. "How far are you going, friend?"

He'd had to paste a fake, charming smile on his face, eyes lighting up as if they would in a real, genuine one. "Wherever the people are as green as the money, friend."

He had been so close the last time, so achingly close. He'd had the money in his hands, at the private detective's office, with a letter of a sighting—someone had seen him in Arrowton, or perhaps it had been St. Augustine—the details were loose and sketchy… and then the trail had gone cold once again, all the money dried up once more.

His little brother was still out of his reach.

He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his chin to his chest to let his boater slide down to cover his face, before a few more of the traveling salesman sat down next to him and across from him, effectively boxing him into his seat by the window.

The train car was clearly getting too damned crowded.

He sighed to himself and tilted his hat back over his head, revealing a youthful, handsome face with twinkling blue eyes and the hint of a dimple in his right cheek. The smile he emitted was like the sun—it had to be.

Without the learned ease with which he carried himself, the practiced charm that frankly oozed from his pores, who would Seto Kaiba be?

The other salesmen, sensing nothing amiss, introduced themselves perfunctorily; one of them held up a deck of cards.

"Next station stop: Domino Town, Iowa!"

Just as the train began to jostle its way into motion, a tall, thin man with a shock of white hair burst into the train car, puffing and wheezing, causing a mite of a scene as he slammed the door shut, silencing cries and shouts. He was clad in a similarly well-made suit—white linen, thin gray pinstripes, ideal for the weather, with suspenders, shined shoes, straw boater hat, the works.

Seto noticed the man's heavy leather briefcase, all shiny and slick, which marked him as one of them—one of the traveling salesmen who practically littered this train compartment. Hmm.

This train ride was clearly not his first choice, based on the evident haste with which he had dressed himself.

Judging by the row that had accompanied his arrival, he had been run right out of town, managing to avoid being tarred and feathered by the angry locals.

Seto Kaiba let himself smile a bit at this poor man's misfortune, knowing that if justice were ultimately to be served (some vague notion of justice predicated on honesty, for that matter), it would be himself in the same unwieldy position as this poor fellow—rendered breathless, chased, on the run, utterly miserable.

He bit back a chuckle as the white-haired man wiped a bit of sweat off his brow and turned to the fellow next to him, then buried his nose in the cards in his hand as the men around him chatted amongst themselves. Blending in. Becoming exactly who he needed to be in this situation, as with every situation.

"The climate for traveling salesmen is damned near impossible these days. I say, damned near impossible," muttered the man to no-one in particular, removing his hat, his breaths calming down as the train's motion settled into a low rumble beneath his feet. He glanced around the packed train car wildly, looking for a place to sit, light brown eyes darting in his pale face with a vengeance.

"Ryou Bakura, traveling salesman. Anvils," he huffed, his search futile. Remembering his manners, he extended his hand in turn to several of the other men in the car, who, agreeable enough, murmured some kind of introduction, determined not to let this newcomer spoil their mood.

One of the men piped up. "What did you mean about traveling salesmen? That's my line of work—I sell knives and cutlery, the like."

Ryou leaned against a seat, using his heavy briefcase to stabilize himself in the moving car. "Even for an honest men like ourselves—It's just no good around here these days. I've just been run out of town because of a damned con artist amongst us."

Seto's lips curved into a conspiratorial smirk, which he hid ably. Poor bastard. His suspicion had been correct. Where was this train station, again? He had clearly been here before… He dared not look around for a sign.

The train car filled with increasingly agitated chatter at this prospect. Con artist? Who? Which one of them? Which cities were safe? Which would welcome their efforts, and which would run them out of town like this poor Ryou Bakura fellow?

Ryou raised his voice above the growing clamor. "Yes—his name is Seto Kaiba, and he's been around all the cities and towns in the area and giving every one of us a black eye!"

Seto was used to this sort of thing, so he was able to keep his face neutral, cards close to the vest, so to speak.

"What do you mean?" questioned one of the other salesman, his voice rising in pitch in alarm.

Ryou sighed, wiping his forehead again. "I was just run out of town because of Kaiba—he goes around selling Duel Monsters cards and instruction books and little gaming technologies, some perpetual motion bullshit, all on spec, and promising to teach the kids in town to play—and then he skips with their money before anything arrives!" His voice grew hoarse in disgust. "Honest man like myself, I was just in Hollows Flat to sell some anvils, and they chase me out of town the day after I arrive because he'd gotten there first!"

Ah, Hollows Flat. Seto had managed to make quite a bit of cash off that particular set of naïve children and their loving, malleable parents—of course, that money had ultimately been spent on attempting to track down this brother. With the profits from his time in Hollows Flat, he'd managed to make it all the way to the last orphanage that had held his brother, ten years ago… which had been razed in the years since and turned into a vacant lot.

Another dead end, another disappointment after endless strings.

Of course, the women in Hollows Flat—that had certainly not been a waste. Ha. The women never were. A charming smile and impossibly seductive body language worked wonders on the female sex, he'd found.

And Duel Monsters? Well, he'd picked up the game as a child, moving from home to home—it had been one of the few constants in his life growing up in the system. And while his cards had never been remotely powerful, he'd understood how to make it work in his favor, betting pennies and dimes against his fellow orphans and foster siblings.

At age sixteen, after years of tinkering with music box and spyglass technologies several years earlier, he'd been able to design a neat little prototype for a card-dealing device—touch the spring in the right way, and the card holder would turn over the top card of a deck.

He was practically a genius, Seto Kaiba was. That was one thing he knew to be true of himself after all this time being someone else.

He was sure that if he'd been born into wealth and privilege, been adopted into comfort and security, even, he'd be able to embark on a different path, go to university. Perhaps he would have grown up kinder, happier, less cynical, more trusting.

Perhaps he wouldn't have to perform the myth, the lie, to parents, to children in towns like Hollows Flat all over the country, again and again, selling them dreams, selling them empty promises he would never, could never deliver. After all, there was no "Kaiba Company"—only a name that he threw around, ever the perfect traveling salesman, ever the kindly entrepreneur. Despite his knowledge of Duel Monsters, despite the device he had invented—there was only the one, the prototype, and that he would never give out.

Perhaps he wouldn't feel such a pang as he counted each citizen's money that they gave to him in droves, sold on his wild fantasies that he would never make good on.

Perhaps Mokuba would not have been separated from him twelve years ago, and perhaps Seto would not be forced to move from town to town, fleecing the locals from Utica to Bakersfield, spending all his funds on trying to find him.

He removed his coat and placed it under his seat, covering the embossed, stick-on letters on his suitcase. Just to make sure.

Caution never hurt anyone, after all. Especially in this line of work—caution could save his life.

After Ryou's announcement, the car was still filled with a crackling, panicked anxiety. How were they to make a living? Support their families?

Ryou ran his hands agitatedly through his hair, his movements angular and tensely strung together. "Just giving you all a heads-up, gentlemen—if you see Seto Kaiba, report him to the proper authorities immediately."

"What does he look like?" someone piped up—one of the salesmen near Seto, raising his head and adjusting his straw boater with a look of alarm.

"Nobody knows—he's never spent a night in jail, so no-one's gotten a police drawing of the man. But, I mean, if you see a man going around town selling Duel Monsters cards and that new-fangled device of his, make sure you question him firmly—perhaps you'll catch him in a lie." The other salesmen nodded amongst themselves, tacitly agreeing to this plan. Seto turned to the men in his vicinity and followed suit, eyes widened in mock sincerity. Of course. We can't afford to let one bad apple spoil our reputations.

"Of course, he'd be a fool to try anything here in the good ol' Midwest," said one of the other salesmen to Ryou, his voice confident in his assertion.

Ryou nodded his head vigorously in agreement. "I agree, friend—Seto Kaiba doesn't know the territory, doesn't know the people, the values… if there's anywhere that could sniff out a crook like him, it'd be 'round these parts."

The voices died down to a low murmur of assent. Of course their business was safe—no man would be foolish enough to try and fool these honest, stubborn folk that you'd find in these towns.

"Can you give me a spot? Legs are killing me," Ryou groaned. One of the other salesmen obliged, letting him squeeze in between himself and his portly neighbor in a most uncomfortable manner.

Seto returned to his card game. Noticing that he had a winning hand, he laid down his cards and pocketed the several dollars that he and his compatriots had bet. Now he had enough for a hot dinner in the next town, and perhaps for a night in a hotel.

Now, what was the next town in this endless mass of small-town America, all stuffed full with corn and wholesome values…and, hopefully, boredom among the locals?

Despite the inherent need for caution, let it be said that Seto Kaiba had a certain eye for a challenge.

"Domino Town!" the conductor rasped, sticking his mustached head into the train car briefly as the train began to slow down.

Well, Domino Town had to be as good a place as any, Seto supposed. He straightened his slightly wilting boater hat on his chestnut hair, reached for his jacket and slid it on, and brushed some invisible lint off his wheat-colored summer suit.

Perfect. Pulled together. Impossible to detect as out of the ordinary.

He looked out of the window at the impending small town one last time, and then focused on his own reflection. He smoothed a strand of hair off of his forehead and arranged his features into that practiced, open smile—his main weapon in this line of work.

This is all for him. Everything—the lies, the scams—it's for him. It was his mantra before every cruel effort he made in every city, every hamlet, every town like this one.

They were starting to blur together.

Amidst the clanging of the bells heralding the train's arrival at the Domino Town station, Seto stood up and hoisted up his briefcase.

"Gentlemen, you have certainly piqued my interest," he began, his voice booming throughout the tiny train car. Ryou and the others turned towards this formerly quiet traveling salesman with the bright, charismatic grin and friendly aura.

"I believe I'll have to give Domino Town a try."

Ryou's eyebrows crashed together; he piped up from where he was squished between two other salesmen, voice fraught with confusion. "Don't believe I caught your name, friend."

Seto raised an eyebrow and looked right at Ryou. "Don't believe I dropped it," he quipped, flashing the lettering on his suitcase—"SETO KAIBA—KAIBA COMPANY"—to everyone in the compartment.

Ryou's eyes widened with understanding—this was the man!— and he struggled to extricate himself from the row of salesmen in order to catch this Seto Kaiba, this phantom who had sat amongst them this whole train ride, who had caused him considerable annoyance and misery…

"It's him!" he shouted—yet the train car was indeed too packed with men all hoping to make their fortune for anyone to be able to reach him in time before he slipped away.

Seto beamed at the group of traveling salesmen, all wiggling towards him like a tangle of worms, before nimbly making his way down the steps and off the train and into the thick of the uncharted waters that lay before him.


	2. Iowa Stubborn

Ishizu Ishtar dipped the brush in paint, a smooth, rich, velvety violet, and daubed it on the canvas before her in a swooping, graceful arc, before wiping a touch of sweat off her brow in the strangely warm April day.

Despite the difficulties with everything going on in her life, in Domino Town, with her students, with Marik, painting, her greatest area of expertise in this world, always managed to soothe her frazzled nerves, to provide a channel to turn her frustrations into something outside herself, into something beautiful.

This was her afternoon ritual in her little private studio: a little warm-up before Serenity Crawford arrived back at the house for her lesson that evening. It would not do for an art teacher to have a shaky hand that day—or rather, any day, for that matter.

She rinsed her paintbrush in a bowl of water and studied the canvas, with its unfurling mass of violet highlighted with icy blue—an abstracted sea-sky fractured and curled its way across the plain, unprimed cloth that she had set up on her easel.

Usually Ishizu painted more figurative works—that was what she taught to her students, anyway. Landscapes with misty blue mountains and verdant green fields; the always-popular portraits of family members for parents to show and give around Christmastime, not to mention occasionally commission; the occasional partial nude figure study, when she could acquire a willing model, that is...

Yet after the particularly cold behavior she had been the recipient of over the past few weeks alone, something properly stormy and half-rendered seemed to fit the bill more precisely.

Hmm… needs a little white, perhaps? She daubed her paintbrush in the glop of white pigment on her palette, then thought better of it and dipped her fingers in directly, highlighting right beside the deepest recesses of the still-wet purple paint, creating deep slashing forms that seemed to stab right out of the canvas, all tense and sharp.

Pleased with the impulsiveness of her decision to finger paint—that vestige of childhood, with its unbridled promise and creativity that so often eluded her—she wiped her hands on her already hopeless paint-splattered overalls and adjusted her thin rimless glasses perched on her nose, knowing that the oils would soon get everywhere, dotting her face and arms with bright cold colors.

Ishizu knew she looked the part of the eccentric art instructor—that sort of floaty spirit from whom pure inspiration, and perhaps a touch of lunacy, seemed to waft from the very pores, the very essence of art, distilled into one body—that artificial way of being that in no way would describe her. Yet her enthusiasm for her craft, for teaching; her too-much-ness in her manner of speech and dress; not to mention her fortunate-yet-unfortunate stroke of luck several years ago… they all had left her nearly friendless, little more than a sour note on the tongues of everyone in Domino Town.

It was not my fault that Mr. Shadi left me the art collection. As she rinsed her brushes in a small bucket of mineral spirits, the sharp, pungent petroleum-esque smell rising through her nostrils and seemingly into her brain most unpleasantly, she fought back bitterness from rising in her throat. It was not through any sort of trickery that he left his collection to me and not to Domino town.

The mysterious old gentlemen with his bald head and strangely smooth face had long been a fixture around Domino Town—Ishizu had known him growing up as one of her father's dearest friends. Yet when the wealthy Mr. Shadi had died several years ago, he had caused quite the stir when he had bequeathed his rather spectacular art collection not to Domino, as he had intimated previously, but to Ishizu herself.

To make no mistake, the fine Georgian columned brick building holding the paintings and sculptures, containing all manner of European and American art fresh from the salons of faraway Paris, still belonged to the city. Ishizu worked most mornings in the collection building, offering tours to visitors and making sure everything was properly labeled.

She still rented her studio space in the small old guesthouse behind the collection building—the building was Mr. Shadi's former mansion, after all—and tried to make herself as unseen and ordinary as possible—as she had been before the strange begifting., before everything had changed.

It had taken her completely by surprise, Mr. Shadi's overly generous bequest. She had completed college at a small Ohio college, one that accepted women, majoring in painting and art history, and had returned home upon graduation to set up her own painting and teaching studio. She had, of course, spent several nights a week caring for the then-geriatric Mr. Shadi upon his request—cooking him dinners, reading to him (for Mr. Shadi had preferred to keep his cards close to the vest, as it were, and not hire any help he did not know previously in his old age), and she had completed a rather magnificent portrait of him that still hung in the collection building, above the master bedroom's fireplace.

That work had been a true triumph for her—all greens and brown tones, done up in the style of Edouard Manet with the blackness of Mr. Shadi's suit boring into the eyes of anyone who saw it, and it clearly had won him over as well…

Yet as rumors do, false utterances had quickly spread around Domino town and her prickly, resentful citizens—rumors that Ishizu had obtained ownership of the artworks through most unsavory and inappropriate means. Means that made Ishizu shudder still upon thinking of them.

While Ishizu did still count several of the women in town among her acquaintances, through some measure of charm or begging, only one could she count as her dear friend: the erstwhile Mai Valentine, whose own exploits had given her quite the reputation herself.

Thoguh, Ishizu reminded herself, perhaps unkindly, Mai's reputation in Domino Town was actually earned.

And then, of course, there was the matter of Marik.

Marik Ishtar, known around town—reviled, frankly—as the troublemaking younger brother of that no-good harlot-artist Ishizu Ishtar. When Ishizu's and Marik's parents had died, both of illness, while Ishizu was still studying at college, Marik's mood had taken what still seemed to be a permanent turn for the worst.

Seven years her junior, Marik had never been particularly inclined to follow the rules put forth for him by their parents (or by the stubborn denizens of Domino City, for that matter), and, well, once the whole affair with Mr. Shadi's art collection had transpired…

It was a marvel she and Marik were still living together, that he had not been yet made a ward of the state. He only had one year to go before he reached his majority. Yet after the night he had spent in jail on counts of loitering and public indecency, she could only hope he would learn to better control himself, for once Marik reached eighteen, the punishments doled out for his misbehavior would be far less forgiving…

Still, she kept her head up high in the storm, against the two-faced, small-minded Domino Town citizens who took in her art collection by day, sent their children to be taught fine arts by her by night, and spoke poorly of her at all other times in between, over breakfast, lunch, afternoon knitting, evening socials that they refused to include her in.

If nothing else, Ishizu Ishtar maintained a rather misplaced sense of inner nobility, one from which she derived strength and morale in light of all that had occurred. These small-minded people did not truly understand her, clearly, and had chosen to shun her and her family for it when they weren't taking advantage of her art collection and her talent as an artist and teacher—

And yet Ishizu Ishtar stayed in Domino Town—at least until Marik's health improved, or until she found the means to take what was rightfully hers, if she could even stomach doing so, and leave the small, stagnant town and all of its unpleasant memories behind.

Ishizu realized, with a small sigh, that she was unduly abusing her poor paintbrushes; the mineral spirits were oozing into the small cuts and calluses on her hands. She winced slightly in pain, drawn out out her resentful reverie.

She quickly dried the brushes on her overalls and placed them beside the bucket of pungent mineral spirits. Careful not to let the thickly applied oils drip onto her overalls (but what for, really?) she gingerly lifted the large canvas from its perch on her easel and leaned it against the back wall of her studio space, alongside her other recent works.

A brusque knock at the door to the studio sounded, followed by a tall woman with flowing blonde hair and a startlingly pink feathered hat, totally out-of-place in this heat spell, who marched right up to where Ishizu was standing and thrust a wrinkled set of pages at her.

"I-is something wrong, Mrs. Crawford?" Ishizu queried, anxiety clenching at her stomach like a vise. Why did she not go to the house? Why is she here, in my private space?

... Of course something is wrong. Something always is…

"I don't know, Ms. Ishtar. What do you make of this?" came the furious yet haughty voice of the woman, who was practically seething with rage, an anger that colored her cheeks the same pink as her attire.

Ishizu unfolded the sheets and found that they were—drawings. Nude figures studies of men and women, of angels and cupids partially covered by thin fabric…

"Mrs. Crawford, your daughter has merely been practicing her figure studies, as I assigned her last week…"

Mayor Crawford's wife, the imperious Cecelia, all six feet tall with fading matinee idol-looks, forever hounding her sweet eldest daughter Serenity for some reason or another, looked most displeased at Ishizu's response.

"And this is what you're teaching my daughter?" She folded her arms across her impressive bosom and stared down at Ishizu, mouth twitching with disgust and resentment.

Ishizu scanned the drawings quickly. While Serenity's sense of proportion still needed work, the charcoal shading clearly was the product of many hours of work, work that her own mother had ripped away and crumpled up like trash…

How cruel…

"Mrs. Crawford," replied Ishizu evenly, praying that she could hold her temper, her own sense of superiority over this downright provincial woman, with her local politics and fashionable social events, in check. "Figure studies are a basic and necessary way of teaching art students to draw. Why even images of our Lord Christ and his saints and angels have been rendered in the nude… to be able to recreate the figure in the nude, or even in partial-nude, opens up a multitude of figurative possibilities, not to mention that it's good practice for observation of muscles, flesh, sinew, bones working under skin…"

"This is smut," retorted Mrs. Crawford, voice dripping with scorn. "What you're teaching my daughter—with these bodies of young women and men, lying about in their underthings, or with their naked shame all showing for the world to see?" Her voice turned snobby and icy. "What else could I expect from someone like you?"

Ishizu bit the inside of her cheek at the insult that, by all means, she ought to have anticipated coming from Mrs. Crawford, the de facto originator of the gossip surrounding Ishizu and Mr. Shadi. Or, if not the source, Mrs. Crawford had partaken greedily in those rumors like a fine meal…those dark clouds of words that chased Ishizu around town every which way she went…

"Mrs. Crawford," she responded softly, a pleading tone coming into her voice, "wouldn't you rather have Serenity studying art, studying the classics—than, than… oh, I don't know, being forced to learn nothing but deportment and sewing all day?"

"I have half a mind to pull her out of your art classes, Ms. Ishtar—and how dare you imply that my Serenity needs deportment lessons? I assure you, Serenity is of good breeding and good manners, unlike some young people I could mention…"

And now she had attacked Marik with her fork-prong words. That was unforgivable—yet what could Ishizu do?

She gritted her teeth and kept her tone level. "I understand, Mrs. Crawford. I apologize for my words—I meant no harm by them."

"I'm sure you meant nothing by it." Mrs. Crawford sniffed, taking in Ishizu's rather untidy studio, a cruel mocking smile playing on her lips. Knowing she had won, she pulled out her ornate pearl-encrusted purse and pressed a folded bill into Ishizu's hands. "This is for last week's lesson. See to it that Serenity does not continue to study any of this disgusting nudity and obscenity. Have her paint lovely robed angels singing our Lord's praises, have her paint little sheep in a meadow, I don't give a damn. But if I find that you've been tempting her to sin, to lust, to shame by teaching her to draw naked people, by God, she will not be returning to your studio for lessons. Is that understood?"

Ishizu wanted nothing more than to crumple the money, light it on fire and thrust it into Mrs. Crawford's smug, self-satisfied face until the older woman screamed in agony. Yet she instead tucked the money into the front pocket of her overalls and folded Serenity's drawings carefully, placing them on the table next to the brushes. "I understand completely, Mrs. Crawford."

"And you're not to tell her that it was I who found the filth she was drawing, understand? Just tell her that you're practicing something new, that her 'nudes', as you so cavalierly call them, were unsatisfactory, or perfectly fine, whatever you wish to say. She will just have to learn that some things are just not done. Some things are not appropriate in this town, Mrs. Ishtar, despite what you and your brother might think…"

Ishizu bowed her head and remained silent.

Mrs. Crawford took one more leering look around Ishizu's studio, sniffed, and swept out with a flurry of pink feathers.

As soon as the door closed, Ishizu let out a dry, halting sob. Anger, molten hatred and resentment towards this unceasingly cruel and petty woman, with her behavior towards not only Ishizu and Marik, but her own daughter as well rose up in her throat, closing off any other path to a better frame of mind.

What else could she do?

Ishizu clenched her fists, willing herself to calm down, and ran over to the back of the studio where her finished canvases lay, propped up against the wall. Rummaging towards the back of the piles of paintings, she retrieved a long, narrow canvas she had painted in dewy pinks and yellows two months ago—a quickly rendered study of the shy, nascent spring flowers growing outside her window.

Well, it was now April. And in the unseasonal heat of the weather, the sudden heat of her anger, what else could Ishizu do but set the canvas on her easel, reach for her biggest brush and start flooding the once-tranquil scene with strokes of blackest paint?

Seto watched the train pull off into the distance with a satisfied smirk. Oh, how he did love getting the upper hand on people like that—people who bespoke wealth and comfort, or at least those who did not have that same air of struggle, the grime under their nails from clawing up to achieve what little they had the way he had done his entire life.

He looked around him, at the dusty train station with its small coterie of wholly uninterested people milling about, then hoisted his briefcase off the ground and began to make his way away from the station.

The one road leading from Domino Town's small train station wound its way up a gentle hill bracketed on both sides by fenced-off fields—individual livestock farms, Seto reckoned. I don't suppose there's some kind of horse and buggy rig to get me up the hill…?

He walked over towards the fence and called out to the farmer, a skinny bearded man resting in the shade of a tree on his property, "Excuse me, friend! Where could I see about getting a rig to the center of town?"

The farmer called back without moving: "The man in charge of hiring rigs!"

Seto blinked for a bit, almost surprised at the man's rather unexpected… standoffishness? Perhaps he's having a bad day…

He walked a bit further up the hill, beginning to sweat beneath his linen suit under the unseasonably hot sun, his shoes filling with clods of dust from the dirt road. He caught sight of another figure, all blurred in a haze of sunlight, arranged his figures into a benign smile and called out:

"Hello, friend! Could you direct me to the center of town?"

And the figure replied, as if he'd been expecting this sort of question and was prematurely weary from it:

"Runs right down the middle of the street!"

O-kay. Is everyone in this town all out of sorts because of the heat? Or…

Seto reached for a handkerchief and wiped his forehead before trudging up the rest of the hill. Couldn't hurt…

His efforts were soon rewarded with a charming view of Georgian brick buildings and clapboard houses and storefronts, all paved with cobblestone streets just wide enough for perhaps five to walk abreast. A few carriages moseyed on down the street, drawn by particularly tired-looking horses.

The locals hummed about their business in small groups of twos or threes—buying their groceries, going to the milliner, the haberdasher, each group moving in isolation, not acknowledging one another. Few "hellos" or greetings of any kind seemed to be exchanged among these locals, except for the buzzing and twitting amongst small clusters of middle-aged women placed here and there like coteries of hens, pecking and pecking away.

Seto walked over to one side of the street and made his way over to a building that read in painted red letters on white clapboard: "GENERAL STORE." He approached the men standing out front enjoying a cigarette and asked, scarcely holding his breath at this point: "Hello gentlemen—I'm new in town. Where could I find a good hotel?"

One of the men, a tall, coarse-looking fellow with a shock of blond hair, quipped drily: "Try the Old Royale in Cleveland!"

Seto fought to stop from rolling his eyes. Is everyone in this damned town insane?

Was it just… something about Domino Town and her citizens? Something about Iowa itself—something curt and straightforward in people's manner? Did they not take to strangers? What the hell was going on with these people?

Seto adjusted his suit, the heat starting to wear down his charm, and continued along down the sidewalk, beginning to draw stares from the townsfolk. After all, new people coming to Domino Town, Iowa, were quite a rarity, especially men who looked as young and fresh as this one.

Before long he had a flock of Domino City chickens following him along his way.

He called out to a pair of women he saw sitting on a wrought-iron bench and called out, against his better judgment, "Hello ladies! What do you all do around here for fun in Domino Town?"

One of the women responded flatly: "Mind our business."

Seto gritted his teeth but kept up his smile, continuing to walk towards where he assumed the center of Domino Town would be—at least, if the earlier sarcastic gentleman had been indeed telling the truth in his own way.

Someone behind him tapped him on the shoulder. "You're in Iowa, stranger," the man muttered behind a bushy mustache, pronouncing it Io-way.

Seto raised an eyebrow in response. "Ioway? Is that how you say it?" he replied, forcing a self-deprecating chuckle into his voice. "I never knew that's how it's meant to be said!"

A woman who began walking alongside him piped up, "Well, we say it now and then, but we don't like anybody else to."

"You folks sure know how to make a body feel at home," Seto said briskly, the cheer in his voice now tasting artificial and sour on his tongue. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

"That's just how it is here in Iowa," replied the bushy-mustached man as the townspeople gathered behind Seto began to pick up speed, following him wherever he went on the street—across the street, as he took a peek in a storefront window, across the lawn of the schoolyard... Seto turned his head back in a kind of wonder at these increasingly odd people in this increasingly odd town.

"You know, we're a different breed of people than you're likely used to, stranger," added a younger man towards the middle of the pack. "Iowa's a sort-of… well, how can I describe it…?"

"We've got a bit of a chip on our shoulder, you might say," filled in a female voice somewhere next to the original mustachioed man. "We're a proud people—cold, and stubborn as all get-out."

Cold and stubborn. Sounds familiar.

Seto's fought to keep his voice light and pleasant. "Well, that's certainly charming to hear—every town in this great state, in this great country of ours certainly does have its little quirks, now, doesn't it?"

It was clearly not the right thing to say. Seto noticed several of the people in the flock behind him bristle and sought to make amends. "Ah, my mistake, I misspoke. You see…"

"Stranger, we're a plain-spoken folk here in the heartland, and especially in Domino Town. We've got no need for your fancy words and linguistics…" began the mustachioed man at the front of the crowd.

"And yes, you're welcome to stay with us—but remember that here it's every man for himself. No handouts! And we likely will not mention it again," chimed in a passer-by.

"We're a by-God stubborn and proud people here in Iowa, so you mustn't forget that!"

"But you are correct in that you really ought to give Iowa a try."

Seto smiled at the throng of people behind him, face nearly going numb from the effort it took, and tipped his hat rather gallantly. "Thank you kind folks! I'm glad to hear of it, and I think I will give Domino Town a try."

He turned on his heel and walked away from the crowd, which, feeling as though it had gotten its message across, began to disperse, each citizen resuming their own business as if it were any usual day. Well, that definitely wasn't what I was expecting from a place like this…

A small building with a generous front porch caught his eye, and outside that building, a hand-lettered sign reading, simply, "Hotel."

Well, they were right about being plain-spoken…

He hoisted his briefcase up the steps, up on to the porch, and opened the strangely light wooden door to the hotel.

The hotel was certainly everything that he had expected in a small town like this—homespun niceties mingled with a proud sense of plainness. There was no vaulted ceiling of hotels in larger, richer cities, no marble trimmings or columns, no Persian rugs beneath his dusty feet, no clinging rosebuds entwined in the staircase railings. Instead, it was all paneled wooden floors, rickety-looking rocking chairs, and doilies. Lots of doilies. Aside from a few people reading in the rocking chairs, the lobby was largely empty.

Seto set down his heavy briefcase and let out a long, well-deserved sigh.

"Seto Kaiba?" came a voice. Seto instinctively froze up, fighting to keep his exterior calm and placid, friendly and unthreatening.

Someone here knows me?

A surge of liquid panic ignited in his veins, and, despite his best efforts, a cold sweat, despite the heat, began to trickle down the back of his neck.

He turned towards the direction of the voice, and despite himself, couldn't stop a tiny, genuine smile from gently tweaking the edge of his lips. "Yugi Moto? What are you doing here?"

Indeed, the spiky hair and small frame had identified the man calling him as none other than Yugi Moto. While Seto Kaiba did not count anyone he knew in that nebulous, wholly unnecessary category of "friends", Yugi Moto had always been a cut above the usual rabble he had to deal with. Following the death of his grandfather, Yugi Moto had landed in the same orphanage that Seto and Mokuba had floated in and out of during their childhoods. He'd run into Yugi several times over the course of his life; they'd even been fostered together in an ill-fated attempt that had lasted only a few months.

Once Mokuba had been separated from Seto in the system—for who would take two boys? The number of willing foster parents had dwindled as the boys had grown older —and contact had been seemingly irretrievably lost between them, Seto had taken his not-inconsiderable natural intellect and ingenuity and had turned to swindling—conning unsuspecting people out of money, any amount of money, that he would then use trying to buy or bribe information about where he could find his brother. As the cons had grown bolder and larger, with nary a failure of note growing up, Yugi Moto had always been there, in a similar way, though his motives were far simpler—he just wanted to be able to survive.

The two of them had, despite Seto's protestations, even worked together as part of a con in a small New England city… but that is a story for another time. Despite his surprise at whatever Yugi Moto could be doing in this small, strange Midwestern town, he was, shockingly, almost pleased to see him. I must be getting sentimental.

Yugi strode over to him and extended his hand, beaming almost beatifically. Keep your expectations down, Yugi, thought Seto dismissively, before taking the smaller man's hand. Yugi always was a bit too overjoyed to see him—and while it couldn't hurt to have an inside man in this particularly increasingly delicate operation, it would not do for it to be evident that the two of them knew one another.

For Yugi's part, seeing his old—well, perhaps friend was the wrong word—associate here in the hinterlands of Domino Town was an unexpected delight. While he could never have called them "partners in crime," in as much as partners were meant to stick together and to trust one another, the two of them had been close as anything, as close as children in the system could ostensibly be.

"Of all the people to run into in Iowa—Seto Kaiba!" Yugi burbled, violet eyes shining, as he held onto Seto's hand firmly. "Why didn't you send word that you would be coming?"

All right, even for Yugi Moto, that's quite naïve.

Seto held a finger to his lips and shhh'd Yugi's overzealous efforts at friendship, as he so often had before. "I'm here on business, Yugi—is there somewhere we could talk?"

Yugi nodded firmly, understanding, and pulled a key from his pocket. He beckoned Seto over to a small room behind the rather ornate front desk of the hotel—the only lavish aspect of the whole lobby, it seemed. The two men entered, and Yugi locked the door behind them.

Seto set down his briefcase and leaned upon it, crossing his arms over his chest. "What's a hustler like you doing in a humdrum place like this?" he asked, trying to stop a note of curiosity from creeping into his voice, and perhaps overcompensating with an air of disgust.

Yugi blushed. "Well, Seto, I'm—ah… retired now. This is where I work—the Domino Town Hotel."

Of all the places to settle down… "You mean you live in this town?" Seto could not imagine staying in this strange, cold, "stubborn" little town for absolutely longer than he had to, for any longer than it would take to run the game and take the money.

Yugi smiled again. "Yeah, I like it, too. I mean, it's certainly not New York City or Chicago or Detroit, but it's certainly got its charms, and it's quiet. People here know people, and that's something that I don't mind." It was true, at least—while Yugi occasionally missed the excitement of pulling off a con, especially the Manchester job several years back with Seto, it certainly was nice to be working steadily as manager of the Domino Town's hotel.

"You sure you aren't in hiding?" quipped Seto drily.

"Nah, I'm retired now—I swear! I got a nice job here at the hotel, and I got a wonderful girl." Here Yugi's face lit up even more than seemed humanly possible.

"Hmm? The plot thickens," responded Seto, fighting from rolling his eyes. Ah, Yugi Moto, that hopeless romantic. No wonder he retired—flimflamming isn't exactly the best business for falling in love with every damned woman who gives him a smile and a wave.

Yugi either didn't notice Seto's teasing, or, far more likely given their history, chose to ignore it. "Yeah—her name's Téa Gardner. Nice girl, lovely, wonderful girl." The mere thought of sweet Téa, with her grace and smile, was enough to outweigh Seto's needling.

"I see. Well, allow me to write your eulogy while I'm standing here: 'Here lieth Yugi Moto, once an honorable man of the scam, now wasting away in Domino Town…'" he let out a dry chuckle at his own cleverness, which Yugi, always game for a laugh, returned wholeheartedly.

"So what's going on with you? What are you doing here? You're not still after…"

After your brother.

Seto nodded gravely, the smile dropping from his face like rain. Yugi reached out a tentative hand to Seto's arm, then thought better of it and commenced twiddling his thumbs. He tried again. "You still doing the Duel Monsters scam?"

"Still doing the Duel Monsters scam—the cards, the rulebooks, the card-dealing devices."

Yugi's features arranged themselves into a thoughtful look. "Well, you've got your work cut out for you here, Seto… anything these Domino folks don't already have, they'd rather do without."

Hmm. This will be a tough sell, then. Still, though… what's wrong with a little challenge?

"Then what do these Domino folks do for entertainment?" Seto queried, sure in some small part of himself that the good citizens of Domino preferred to stand around and glare at one another for fun.

"Well, we've got a nice little art collection since old Mr. Shadi died—it's run by this stuck-up art teacher who gives lessons to all the local kids. Ishizu Ishtar."

"A mere art teacher running an art collection building?"

"It's a long story, Seto—we don't have time to get into that whole business now. Anyway, yeah—Ishizu Ishtar. Maiden lady," continued Yugi, causing a quirk of Seto's eyebrow. Maiden lady, huh?

"I see…" mused Seto, a smirk creeping onto his face. Well, I do have a not-inconsiderable track record for this sort of thing…

"Eh, Seto, good luck with that one—she's odd but bright, and she'll definitely expose you before you unload this whole Duel Monsters thing…" Yugi shook his head at Seto's overconfidence, chewing on his lip thoughtfully. While Seto was charming and handsome, more so than most, that darkness that he knew licked at Seto's heels on a permanent basis certainly complicated things—not to mention that particular keen intelligence Ishizu Ishtar held in her eyes.

If this was the path Seto wanted to take, he certainly had his work cut out for him.

She'll try to expose me? Seto inhaled sharply, feeling—was it nervousness, perhaps…? If the town is this… cold and strange towards one another, how am I going to sell them on the idea of dueling in pairs, against each other? I have my work cut out for me…

"Well then, Yugi, you point her out to me the minute you see her, and I'll see if I can't get some… ahem… exposing done of my own, on my own terms."

At this clumsy entendre, both of them laughed—Yugi wholeheartedly, and Seto decidedly more guardedly.

Still, at the prospect of all of this, a quiet thrill shook itself alive within his veins. For Seto Kaiba, wanted con man, did enjoy a good challenge. And getting the people to come together to duel one another, not to mention taking care of this mysterious art teacher woman who would, as Yugi said, seek to expose his tricks, would be a most excellent challenge indeed.


	3. Ya Got Trouble

Once Seto had made it perfectly clear that despite the potential opposition to his plan from the aforementioned art teacher, Yugi had sighed to himself and taken him on a little tour of Domino Town.

There wasn't much to see. Domino had the standard small-town amenities that kept people still feeling loyal to this place in the middle of nowhere: a barbershop, post office, candy/soda shoppe, City Hall, all organized around a picturesque central square; elementary, middle, high school; a general store, some clothing and material stores, and a restaurant on the street Seto had walked along earlier; a few factories, the outlying farms that Seto had passed on his way from the train station, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The streets were smoothly paved with cobblestones; cleanly tapered trees lined every avenue, intermingled with pruned shrubs and bushes and gaslights that cast foggy glows against the greying sky.

The pair sat down on a bench in the central square just as the clock tower above City Hall chimed six-o'-clock. Yugi offered Seto a cigarette, which Seto declined, before lighting one himself.

In Seto's line of work, a disarming smile was everything, and nicotine-stained teeth hardly spelled out "trustworthy." He reached into an inner pocket of his suit and pulled out a small cloth sack of sunflower seeds, a few of which he popped into his mouth, savoring the rush of salt that enveloped his tongue.

Yugi puffed a bit on his cigarette, inhaling that acrid smoke into his lungs, and held it thoughtfully between his index and middle finger.

"So, let me tell you about Domino Town." For something that seemed like a benign statement, his voice was rather uncharacteristically serious.

"I'm all ears." Seto folded his arms across his chest and crossed one leg over the other, settling back into the bench, chewing busily on the salted seeds.

Yugi pointed to a tall man in an especially fine suit with flowing white hair and his be-hatted stout wife, strolling arm in arm away from City Hall. "That's Mayor Crawford, and his hell-train of a wife, Cecelia."

Seto chuckled at Yugi's bluntness. "What compliments you're paying this woman. Does she know you hold her in such high regard?"

"She's a total ninny—gossipy hen, that woman. She's got every housewife and mother in Domino under her thumb. Used to be a model in Chicago back in the day, and carries herself like it, too. I know I warned you about Ishizu Ishtar, but I wouldn't get on Cecelia Crawford's bad side either."

"And the most Honorable Mayor Crawford himself?" Seto queried mockingly, eyes following the couple as they disappeared into the night.

"Mayor Crawford's all right—a bit of a stuffy geezer, but he gets the job done. Bit overzealous when it comes to criminals, though—loves the whole tarring and feathering business. Maybe it'd be good for you to also not get on his bad side as well, come to think of it…"

"Is there anyone in this town it would behoove me not to anger?" Seto bit back a chuckle at Yugi's placidly delivered words of warning.

"You're telling me, Seto. You're telling me." Yugi tapped out a bit of ash and stuck the cigarette back into his mouth.

He drew it out quickly with a short cough and pointed to a young woman clad in deep indigo velvet, her long blond curls streaming behind her as she walked her small yappy dog along the avenue of the square. "That's Mai Valentine. Widow. Like Ishizu, she's a bit of a social pariah around here, especially with the ladies social committee and all that, but she gets around better. Officially, she works as a secretary in City Hall, but word around town is, if you're looking for some easy action, Seto, I'd recommend going up to see her. Not Ishizu Ishtar."

Seto cast a lingering glance at the buxom blonde woman, whose long coat showed her curves off to their best advantage. Occasionally the woman would wave at the other passers-by; while the men waved back or tipped their hats to her, their wives merely sniffed and pulled their coats tightly across their bodies in response, as if whatever Mai Valentine had was catching and they certainly didn't want it.

"As for Domino's townsfolk in general, just sell the pitch hard and win 'em over. That's the best you can do in this case…" He blew a smoke ring and fumbled in his pocket for another cigarette.

"…The Duel Monsters scam, huh?Boy, Seto, I gotta tell you…"

Despite the placid exterior of this town, its veneer of coldness, Seto surmised that there was a hot running current of gossip and backtalk that served as the veritable lifeblood of this stale town. People hardly moved to Domino from someplace else, Yugi (and Seto, for that matter) being the exception, and people rarely left.

Was it boredom or despair that kept these souls tied here?

Seto presumed that there were things that Yugi were not mentioning—the matter regarding Ishizu Ishtar. What could an art teacher and curator have done to incur the wrath of an entire town?

So this entire town will be a challenge to woo, not just this little art teacher.

"Well, Yugi, you sure picked yourself a town," quipped Seto, beginning to feel only slightly uneasy. He spat out a few stray seeds and reached a hand to his breast pocket, rooting around for a toothpick.

Do I even dare?

Yugi gave up on another cigarette and reached for some of Seto's seeds. He popped a handful into his mouth, seemingly done with the tedious Domino Town gossip. "Say, Seto, why don't you let me take you back to the hotel and get you all settled in?" he mumbled, cheeks round and puffed-out like a chipmunk's.

Do I?

Seto pressed his lips together briefly and shook his head. "Haven't made my mind up whether I'm going to stay or not. Not sure if it's worth it yet." His voice came out harsher than he intended.

He settled back on the bench, crossed his legs, and popped a toothpick between his paling lips, looking around the square with increased agitation. He felt a bead of sweat begin to percolate at the back of his neck, sliding just beneath his collar where it was not needed.

What's my way into these small-town stubborn Iowans' hearts and wallets? What's my angle here?

Have I finally gotten in too deep? Should I just quit now, before I've tried, before I've gotten involved? Catch the next train out of town and start over somewhere where people aren't quite so idiosyncratic and damned strange?

Mokuba rarely felt this far away, and Seto this lost, as in this delicate moment.

Yugi watched Seto's rather tense behavior carefully, eyes round and concerned even as his mouth was scorching with the salt from the sunflower seeds. What was he even doing, helping out Seto like this? Hadn't he had admittedly enough of the con artist game—wasn't Domino Town meant to be his opportunity to go strait, settle down with a nice girl, and get away from all the false names and false hopes Seto sought to bring?

Seto wiped the back of his neck with his sleeve and turned back towards Yugi, whose eyes were streaming, tongue covered in bitter welts. If nothing else, Yugi Moto had a keen salt tooth, and little idea of when was a good time to give up, already.

The irony of what he was doing now, working as Seto's inside man in this burgeoning Domino Town Duel Monsters scam, was not lost on him.

Seto proffered the smaller man a toothpick, which Yugi accepted gratefully. "Come on, Yugi. You know how this works. I need an angle to work. Something to latch onto."

Yugi fished around in his mouth for the pointy remnants of seed shells. He sighed. "Yeah, I know."

Seto leaned in towards Yugi, eyes twinkling with a flicker of curiosity, causing the younger man to inhale sharply in surprise. "So what's new in town? I do have to create a desperate need in Domino Town for Duel Monsters, after all."

It would seem as though the game is on…?

Yugi scratched at his forehead, trying to think quickly. To be quite blunt about it, despite the churning undercurrent of endless gossip and the strangeness of her citizens, Domino Town was not exactly well-endowed in the way of exciting new attractions. After all, Domino Town had been one of the last towns in all of the United States to get the telephone, and that had been almost at the turn of the century.

Yugi swept his eyes across the square, taking in the gently glowing gaslights as they created haloes against the darkening sky. He chewed on his lip as Seto's eyes bored into the side of his neck. Come on, Yugi. Think…

"Well, a baby was born a few months back with a sixth finger. It was in the paper and everything," Yugi burbled witlessly, a tiny smile cracking onto his face as Seto rolled his eyes in response.

"I bet that was exciting." Seto's voice could hardly have been drier.

"Oh, it was!"Yugi giggled to himself, enjoying Seto's annoyance as the taller man groaned in mock agitation. Just like old times.

"I'm serious, Yugi…" If Seto rolled his eyes any harder, it was surely going to cause him brain damage.

"I know, I know, I know," mumbled Yugi almost thoughtfully.

"Well, we did get a nickelodeon-theater last week… just off Pine Street." Yugi pointed towards a corner of the square, where a crowd of people was beginning to gather. Men, women, children, all dressed in their finest, waited in lines, jostled one another, chattered, or ignored one another entirely.

Seto almost laughed out loud, risking attracting the attention of passers-by. "Yugi, you do realize that Domino Town has to be the last town in the United States to get a nickelodeon-theater, right?" Even smaller towns in New York State and Illinois had those ten years ago… Seto allowed himself to chuckle a bit under his breath. Only in Domino Town…

Yugi thought back to what he'd heard about the telephone and nodded. "I'm not exactly surprised at that. But it's something, right? People are pretty excited to have it…"

Seto fixed him with a quizzical glance.

Yugi amended: "…for Domino Town, that is."

The pair squinted their eyes towards the building and read the marquee: NEW IN TOWN. DOMINO NICKELODEON-THEATER PRESENTS: A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

A Christmas Carol in April? I mean, Domino's behind the times, but that picture is from five years ago…

Seto readjusted his seated position on the bench with some discomfort. His brow furrowed, hands beginning to knot and unknot together and apart as he turned it all over in his mind.

So Domino Town has a new nickelodeon-theater. Hm…

Suddenly, it came to him in a burst of raw, ragged intuition—how exactly to take advantage of this new happening in town, something that people in Domino saw as exotic and different, something with which they were unfamiliar…

"That'll do it, then." He heard his own voice before realizing it came from his own lips.

"What?" Yugi gazed back at Seto, who stood up and briskly patted his linen suit into place, arranging his handkerchief in his breast pocket, and dropping the sack of sunflower seeds onto Yugi's open lap with a gentle thud.

Seto cut his eyes back to Yugi and smirked broadly, toothily, an actual glimmer of excitement, of glee, of joy flickering onto his pale patrician features. "Well, Yugi, aren't you worried aboutwhat kinds of things the young people could see on that screen?"

After all, I've seen all sorts of things on nickelodeon screens that surely the good citizens of Domino Town wouldn't want young boys and girls to accidentally stumble upon in the dark…

Seto made his way over to the theater and thought back in particular to a picture he'd seen a few years ago, a short one, involving a man spying on a woman through a keyhole as she changed her dress… that had certainly surprised him, back in his younger days, that anyone would have had the audacity to record such a thing for public consumption.

That had been such a long time ago, and he little more than a youth. Of course, such things hardly shocked him so anymore. In fact, he rather enjoyed the view the man in the picture had sought through the keyhole (not to be indelicate about it), and had enjoyed such views a good many times in person.

If I can pull this maneuver off, then surely Domino Town will fall into place just like the rest, even with that art teacher Yugi warned me about.

Yugi's eyes grew impossibly wide and he nodded in what was fast approaching understanding. Can he mean…?

Seto turned back towards Yugi and called out: "You stay right there with my suitcase, Yugi, and remember, if you see Ms. Ishtar…" and here he made a swooping painting motion with his right hand quite abruptly, as if he were attempting to swathe the air in front of him in invisible color.

Yugi nodded slowly and popped a few more seeds from the bag into his mouth, eyes trained on Seto's tall, narrow form as he approached a man on the periphery of the crowd outside the theater.

Seto reached out his hand in greeting towards the suited fellow standing before him, arranging his features into a look of gravest concern. Here we go.

"Excuse me, sir, but is all this fuss about the new nickelodeon-theater in Domino Town?"

The man bristled, but extended his own hand towards Seto, who shook it firmly. "Yes, son, that's why everyone's outside. Brand new. No-one's seen such a thing before." His voice was as flat and cold as it seemed everyone in Domino Town's was.

Seto continued, "well, friend, either you are closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge, or you are simply not aware of the caliber of disaster, indicated by the presence of the nickelodeon-theater in your community!"

The man raised both eyebrows questioningly as Seto went on, fighting the urge to cackle to himself under his breath. He raised his arms to his sides, looking for all the world like a simple concerned, nearly frightened honest citizen.

As he should be.

Steady now, bait the hook… "I mean, could it be that I am the only one concerned about the potential for harm to our citizens of this fine town if people spend their time watching all manner of goodness knows what on this very same screen?" He raised his voice towards the end, ensuring that it would carry straight into the heart of the crowd, which paused for a moment.

Several more people approached him; a woman clung to the man's arm as Seto rubbed his chin in mock thoughtfulness. "We simply don't know what kinds of things people could be watching in this theater… in the dark… what kinds of pictures will our young boys and girls see?"

A buzz of murmurs and shuffling overtook the crowd, which began to migrate piece by piece to form a circle around him, all eyes and ears starting to become trained on Seto Kaiba. The women in particular, with their large feathered hats and fur coats, began to look extremely aghast at the mention of their sons and daughters, delivered in such a worried, fraught tone of voice by this handsome young stranger. What does this man mean? What will the new nickelodeon theater do to our children? What could he be saying?

Seto cleared his throat, voice ringing out like a bell. "I must say I am a fan of the pictures myself, but it does take judgment, brains, and maturity to be able to go to the theater, no? It's not as if any young child should just waltz into a moving picture without being able to understand…" and here he groped for something further… "…to understand the very delicate implications of what they are seeing!"

The citizens of Domino Town who stood around him, whispering and worrying one another, buzzing, clucking, humming with activity, with concern, now seemed to number at least one hundred. Seto went on. "I know that all of you folks are good, solid, honest Iowans, and good parents, but I know as well as any of you that a child will not be able to understand something as innocuous as a man and a woman on that screen in the nickelodeon-theater the way clear-thinking adults would. Additionally, my friends, this nickelodeon-theater could harm our sons and daughters by showing smut."

The word echoed around the circle, rippling like a stone thrown into a pond. The townsfolk fell silent, pondering the implications of what the stranger had said. Smut? Our children?... did he mean? Of course he meant… but how? What kind of pictures are being shown in that new nickelodeon theater?

"It seems, my friends," Seto called out, employing his full magnetism and charisma that he wielded so well, "that we have trouble on our hands!"

He watched the growing discomfort of the people around him as his canny words took hold with no small measure of personal satisfaction. While, of course, the inherent worry about the content of these pictures was hardly cause for alarm, it was not in his best interest to point that out.

"This nickelodeon-theater will bring us nothing but trouble, good people of Domino Town. Just think—if your son or daughter happens to see something indelicate on that very screen—" and here he pointed ahead of him towards the marquee; nearly everyone turned their heads to follow his gesture, faces looking positively ill with fear—"it is only a matter of time before they begin to change…"

He walked up towards the people closest to him in the circle and began to make his way around the inside of the crowd, marking his territory. "My friends, you must be vigilant. Watch for the telltale signs of corruption—mark my words! If your children have been going to the nickelodeon to see moving pictures, you will know."

Here Seto was utterly freewheeling, adrenaline shooting through his veins as precisely the right thing he needed to say popped into his head. Oh, it was a delicate moment to be sure. One false move and the crowd could disperse, their stubborn sensibilities refusing to be riled up by this stranger to Domino Town. It was indeed a balancing act, but Seto would be lying if he were to say he did not enjoy this raw feeling of power, of sway over the minds and emotions of these small-minded, provincial townsfolk.

"If your children begin to sneak a cigarette or two from a friend…

"... if you smell bourbon on your daughter's breath…

"... if certain words begin to creep into your son's conversation…

"... if they begin to talk back to you…

"... if she is out far too late, with people who do not respect you, her mother and father…

"... if he begins to show an interest in things far too indelicate to name her…" and here Seto paused, watching with satisfaction as the crowd waited for him to continue with bated breath.

He balled his fists and raised them again, backing up into the center of the circle, a charlatan surrounded by his marks. Each and every one of them shaking, trembling under the sheer force, the power, the weight of his words.

His voice rang out once more. "Then, fair citizens of Domino Town, we have trouble!" The word echoed across the crowd in whispers, in shouts, in wails as the citizens of Domino Town finally lost their heads to false worry.

Seto raised his hands for emphasis one last time, looked over the crowd, and caught Yugi's eye as the latter sat on that bench, mouth agape.

Damn. He's still got it…

Seto's lips flashed into a brief smile, too small for anyone but Yugi, who knew Seto well, to pick up upon.

And… baited.

Ishizu Ishtar folded up her spectacles and placed them on the table beside her paintbrushes, taking pains to make sure the delicate wire rims bore no marks of the paint that stained her overalls, stained her hands and face.

She heard, distantly, the bell of the town hall ring out eight times, and busied herself with removing the aforementioned overalls, her paint-smeared blue blouse, and poured a bit of mineral spirits on her hands and arms in a quick attempt at cleaning them. If she did not make haste, she would be utterly late for Serenity Crawford's eight-fifteen drawing lesson back at the house, and she certainly did not want to anger Mrs. Crawford with any potential lateness.

Although, she reasoned to herself, Mrs. Crawford certainly would be happy for any opportunity to push her out of her henpecked daughter's life, and tardiness would be a fair enough reason…

She could not, however, arrive to meet Serenity at the house dressed like some bohemian artist. She reached into a satchel underneath the table and withdrew her slip, petticoat, girdle, white lace-trimmed blouse and deep green skirt, which she tried to put on as quickly as was possible.

She did not keep a mirror in her studio; she was sure her thick hair had become irredeemably tangled over the course of the day. She smoothed and tucked the fine clothes into places and haggled her hair into a low bun. Donning the gloves tucked away in the pocket of her skirt, she placed the thin spectacles on her nose and locked up the studio for the night.

The collection building was located a few blocks away from the center of town; as she approached the main square she was greeted by an impossibly large crowd all gathered around one young man, who spoke loudly and clearly, gestured gracefully and eloquently, his manner belying the incendiary words he was speaking.

"This nickelodeon-theater will bring us nothing but trouble, good people of Domino Town…" she heard him call out. Hm. What could he possibly mean? How could having access to moving pictures possibly harm these small-minded Philistines?

Ishizu did not have time to dally or listen to the increasingly suspicious words that erupted from the man's mouth, for she was expected home soon. As she took a circuitous route around the highly impressionable crowd through the main square, she did notice, however, that strange disconnect between the confidence and authority the man projected through his voice and body language and the worry and fear his words contained.

She did not like the sound of that. Not one bit.

Something about that handsome young man in the center of the throng rubbed her quite the wrong way.

As she approached the bench where Yugi sat, walking perfectly primly and controlled, Yugi stood up abruptly, waited for Ishizu to pass, and waved his hands about wildly to catch Seto's eye.

Seto narrowed his eyes at Yugi, attempting to decipher the smaller man's motions; Yugi raised his eyebrows childishly and attempted to imitate the swooping painting motion with his arm that Seto had indicated earlier.

Yugi's movements had lost a bit in translation, but Seto got the message, narrowed his eyes at Yugi's facial expression—although Yugi's not wrong about that, ha—and trained his eyes around the area of the bench.

Then he saw her—black hair tucked into a tight bun, white blouse with lace edges, buttoned up to her chin, and a dark green skirt, all covering what had to be a rather shapely figure, moving quickly across the square, avoiding the crowd.

As the throng continued to moan and groan amongst itself, seemingly without end, Seto pardoned and excused his way through a tight cluster of concerned Domino Town citizens, picked up his suitcase from where it sat beside Yugi, and began to follow Ishizu Ishtar out of the town square.

Well, I certainly will not have to convince myself that this will be worthwhile, he thought as he got a better look at her, the way she walked and held herself up like a queen. He did his best to keep his eyes from drifting to her rear in a most ungentlemanly way.

Ishizu was acutely aware of someone following her as she walked out of the square and onto the quiet side street where she and Marik lived in a small two-story home at the end of the road. The gaslights grew farther and farther apart; the neatly pruned bushes by the side of the cobblestone streets were replaced with generous front lawns behind white picket fences.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she felt him approach her from behind with a gentle tap on the shoulder. She whirled her head around and narrowed her eyes, an automatic reflex, and gazed into a rather attractive pale face, crowned by a halo of dark brown hair, with almost fiendishly bright blue eyes—the man from the crowd!

She bristled, holding onto her satchel tightly as the man leaned in towards her, so close that she could almost feel his breath tickle her cheeks.

Despite herself, her cheeks pinked.

"Excuse me, miss," the man drawled, holding up a square of cream-colored lace between long fingers. "Is this yours?"

Ishizu nearly rolled her eyes in response to this ploy. Really? This trick, now? Who does this man think I am, some silly schoolgirl? Some blushing nymphet? I don't even know who he is…

"No, it's not mine." The words came out curt and definitive, as she intended, and she continued to walk down the street, determined not to give him another thought.

Seto Kaiba nearly cursed under his breath as she walked away, his breath returning to him as he recovered from the shock that had been Ishizu Ishtar's exquisitely bronzed face, with full pink lips and intelligent sea-blue eyes. He had nearly dropped his suitcase after she had turned her gaze towards him. Those eyes that had narrowed towards his own, not sparing his stupid effort to gain her attention with that scrap of cloth any more time than was absolutely necessary. Well, that was a bust.

He straightened his suit and picked up the pace to continue after her, not caring how rather untoward he was being in this moment. His legs in his suit pants were longer than hers, which had a long skirt to contend with, and he soon caught up to her again.

Here goes nothing…

Ishizu bit her lip in frustration as she felt the familiar tap on her shoulder. Enough already! She turned her head and sighed with resignation as she saw that same handsome face. She was so close to the front steps of her home…

Seto smirked in a way that had brought many women to their knees before him and murmured quietly, "I'll only be in town a short while…"

If this doesn't get her, doesn't pique her interest, I'm going to have to rethink my strategy entirely.

It was not exactly the most joyous of prospects.

Ishizu pressed her lips together to keep from laughing aloud at Seto's foolhardy forthrightness. Who is this man, and what kind of childish game is he trying to play?

She breezed along past him, walking nearly quickly enough to be cantering, up the porch steps of her house, where she could see Serenity Crawford standing in the window with a stick of charcoal and a pad of paper, laughing gently at some joke Mai had likely told her only moments ago.

She reached out her hand for the doorknob and pulled open the heavy oak front door. Suddenly, she cast a stern look back over her shoulder and uttered a single:

"Good."

Then she let herself in and pushed the door shut behind her, cutting off the strange man with the suitcase and his silly attempts at conversation.


	4. Goodnight, My Someone

Ishizu let out the breath she had been holding in as she leaned against the door, waiting for that tawdry, wholly unnecessary blush to leave her face.

Who was that man?

She didn't have much time to ruminate, however; she patted her clothing into place and entered the drawing room, where Serenity Crawford, the mayor's oldest daughter, and the young widow Mai Valentine, who seemed to have let herself in (of course she did, thought Ishizu sardonically), were sitting at the small dining table by the window, giggling for all the world like a pair of children at some precious inside joke. Serenity's charcoal and paper were left lying on the windowsill, utterly forgotten, as the young girl laughed softly, delicately into her hands, her face a rosy pink, no doubt from the unnecessary likely lewdness of whatever Mai had just told her.

Upon seeing Ishizu's entrance, Serenity immediately blushed a brighter red, no doubt embarrassed at letting her drawing lesson go undone thus far. Oh dear…

Mai merely smiled at Ishizu gaily, her eyebrows perfectly arched, the picture of merriment and joie de vivre.

"Ah, Serenity, I'm afraid our little chat is over, since our dear Miss Grumpy herself has arrived in the flesh," quipped Mai, adjusting herself in the old rocking chair with a flourish. "But if you have any questions about anything, you know you can always ask," she continued with a fluttering wink, her meaning completely clear.

Serenity, ever the meek, modest young girl of sixteen, blushed again, an unholy rouge settling on her cheeks, her forehead. Mai… come on now, don't tell her of all people…

Ishizu rolled her eyes, slipping her shoes off and placing them beneath the window. "Yes, yes, Miss Grumpy is here to end the fun times and subject poor Serenity Crawford to an hour of ghastly drawing practice."

This half-joking, half-serious back-and-forth between them—this was the dance they did nearly every week when Serenity had her drawing lesson.

Besides, Mrs. Crawford will have my head if I let this prurient conversation continue much longer…

She reached for the momentarily forgotten sketchpad and black stick of charcoal, shaking her head slightly to herself, trying to hide the small smile on her face that being around the irrepressible Mai Valentine always seemed to bring.

"So, Serenity, have you done your hand and foot sketches yet this evening?" Ishizu raised an eyebrow at the young girl, noting with a small mite of righteous annoyance at Serenity's rapidly paling face. In the tradition of how Domenico Ghirlandaio had taught Michelangelo, Ishizu required that each and every drawing lesson would commence with the student drawing each hand and each foot from life with both hands, to practice drawing from life quickly and accurately.

Serenity reached for the pad of paper and charcoal, face ashen. "Not yet, Miss Ishtar," she said quietly, placing the drawing tools on the table and reaching down to untie her bootlaces. Her chestnut hair fell in front of her face, obscuring the wobbly lower lip, the full eyes that nearly threatened to spill over.

She sighed to herself as she fumbled with the charcoal. Could she get anything right? Between the scolding from Ishizu and the endless demands of her mother and father, it hardly seemed that way.

Ishizu sighed gently and patted Serenity on the shoulder encouragingly. "It's all right, dear. You know I don't blame you—it's this interloper who's clearly at fault here," she said drily, casting a sharp glance at Mai, who was now smoking a cigarette and looking for all the world like a matinee idol, all blonde glamorous and slightly too-much for ordinary eyes.

"Who—me?" Mai asked, in mock outrage, the smoke leaving her nose in an elegant coil. "Why, I'll have you know that I merely stopped by to make sure Serenity got into the house safely since you were late, Miss Ishtar." Her tone was mocking and well-meaning, but now it was Ishizu's turn to blush.

It was not my fault that I was a bit late—there was that crowd in the square… not to mention that strange man from earlier…

Ishizu nodded quietly, accepting that she had lost this round, as Serenity giggled gently to herself, enjoying, as always, the charming repartee between these two women who had become so dear to her over the past several months.

While Serenity did not gain much pleasure from her everyday life, one of the few things that brought her joy was being able to sit in the Ishtar parlor and sketch, and learn about the wonderful stories about art throughout the ages that Ishizu would occasionally tell. Days of olden Europe, when the monks made their miniature devotional works locked away in their cloisters; or sun-beaten, sweltering Egypt, where the pharaohs would seal themselves away in beautiful sarcophagi; even now, how the true artists lived in Parisian garrets, showing at elegant salons… it was all so lovely, so different from the stuffiness, the endless monotony of living in Domino Town, and she enjoyed these single nights each week immensely.

She held the charcoal stick in her right hand dutifully, pressing it to the paper in her careful, deliberate fashion, trying to capture the feel, the look, the soft, fleshy quality of her left hand as it sat on the table, as Ishizu took the seat next to Mai and buried her face in her hands in a combination of mortification and exhaustion.

"Working later than usual tonight in the studio?" asked Mai, reaching out a soothing hand to the back of Ishizu's neck.

"Yes… hard day. I lost track of time… Were you waiting here long with her?" Ishizu's head felt inexorably heavy, her eyelids weighed down like a mess of oil paint chips.

"Don't worry about it, Ishizu," said Mai cheerfully, her tone round and generous. "Besides, we had fun, didn't we, kiddo?" She looked meaningfully at Serenity, who gasped a bit but was rather firmly lost in trying to recreate that one tough vein on the back of her hand.

Ishizu lifted her head from her hands and looked carefully at her friend. "Mai," she began slowly, trying to keep her voice measured and quiet, "a man with a suitcase followed me home tonight."

Mai quirked an eyebrow and exhaled a perfect smoke ring, her lips curling into a smile. Aha… Has Ishizu finally found someone in this town to catch her eye? It was only a matter of time…

"Who?" The word could hardly have been more loaded, as Mai looked positively gleeful at this prospect.

Ishizu widened her eyes, knowing she ought to have expected her friend's quickly stoked interest. "I never saw him before, Mai…"

Mai tossed her golden hair over one shoulder and leaned forward, eyes boring into Ishizu's. "Did he say anything?"

Ishizu blushed, remembering how handsome the stranger had been—his dark hair, blue eyes, classically handsome features… "He tried," she replied tartly.

Oh, did he ever. "I'll only be in town a short while," my foot. Did he think that would get me to run to his arms? No matter how handsome he might be… how arrogant.

It left a bad taste in her mouth—not to mention how he, a strange man, had followed her home in the dark.

"Did you say anything?" Mai was practically on the edge of her seat. Despite the unsavory rumors surrounding Ishizu and her acquisition of Mr. Shadi's art collection (which hardly concerned Mai, as she was the target of a fair few untrue rumors herself in this narrow-minded, stubborn town), she'd never known her friend to be particularly enthralled with the men in town—or women, for that matter—on the whole.

Ishizu had always seemed too single-minded, too focused on her painting and teaching and managing the art collection to attempt to get involved with anyone. Surely no man in Domino Town was her equal, Mai allowed, but that did not mean that Ishizu had to abstain… Yet Ishizu had rarely spoken of any men at all to Mai, despite the latter's not infrequent teasing and urging. Certainly, Ishizu had never brought up a man without prompting, let alone blushed over him in Mai's company.

Mai cast a glance to the window, sure the sky was falling.

Ishizu blushed still harder, the twin emotions of curiosity about the man and disgust at his uncouth behavior warring inside her head, all tense and stirring, tearing into one another like bloodied, weary wrestlers. "Of course not, Mai."

"Did you at least find out what this man wanted?" Mai asked, rolling her eyes at her friend's reluctance with this sort of thing.

Here Ishizu's usually demure, placid smile gave way to a nearly toothy grin as she found herself chuckling. "I know what he wanted, Mai." The strange man with the suitcase made that abundantly clear.

"Oh?"

Do I ever. "You'll find it in Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights," murmured Ishizu wryly, rising to her feet from her chair and walking over to observe Serenity's progress, leaving a rather confused Mai hanging on those last cryptic words. The young girl had finished her thinly rendered drawings of her hands, all veiny and rather quite expressive, and had begun sketching her delicate pale feet, holding one foot out in front of her. Her forehead was scrunched up in concentration as she held the thin black reed out before her, attempting to measure the distance between her toes accurately.

Ishizu noted her hard work, her dedication to the work of the moment, with a small feeling of delight that bloomed in her chest. "Serenity, dear, would you like to move along?"

Serenity lowered her foot, looked up at Ishizu, and nodded solemnly. "Yes, Miss Ishtar—if you think I'm ready…" Her voice betrayed her rising excitement. Will I get to draw nude studies again? Perhaps copy a pastoral scene? A still life? Her hands nearly shook with anticipation.

Ishizu swallowed hard, remembering Mrs. Crawford's unpleasant interruption of her own studio work earlier that day, her cruel, cold outburst at the nature of Serenity's carefully wrought nude practice drawings, how she had crumpled up what must have been hours of hard work.

… The tall, imperious woman's angry warning about letting Serenity continue to take drawing lessons with her…

She walked over to the cabinet by the window and studied the miniature sculptures she kept to sketch from—small bronze and brass Christian statuette, clay nude torsos, a few abstracted glass pieces—and withdrew a particularly pious-looking figure of the aged Virgin Mary, a reproduction of a sixteenth-century Italian original somewhere far away, all heavily-cloaked and wrinkle-faced… exactly what Mrs. Crawford would like to see her daughter drawing. Something innocent. Something like this.

Ishizu could not take much pleasure in the irony of the town pariah, thought to have made her way through seduction and tricks, owning a sculpture of the purest of the pure. She sighed, feeling rather like a martyr, as she carried the statuette over to the table and set it before Serenity, whose eyelids began to droop with disappointment at the sight.

"You'll be working on a fabric study tonight," began Ishizu, trying to inject some much-needed excitement into her voice at the sight of her wilting student. "I'd like you to copy this sculpture, and while you do, I'd like you to also take a few notes for me, so that I can gauge your intellectual progress in thinking about art. How has the artist used the Virgin's drapery to express her inner turmoil? What do you suppose has just occurred when this image was created? What kind of stylistic details can you notice that could help you place this statuette in time?"

Serenity nodded gravely and opened her pad of drawing paper to a fresh cream-colored page. Were my nude studies not good enough last time? She resolved to practice them at home with more dedication than she had the previous week—perhaps if she attained enough skill, Miss Ishtar would find a way to help her sketch from a live nude? The thought made her nose pink.

Ishizu watched Serenity get to work on this task, tackling it as dutifully and with as much purpose as she approached drawing her hands, her feet, a vase of flowers, even nude figures without a reference… the lump in her throat returned. Serenity Crawford really was a delight to have, despite the meddling of her intolerable mother in more areas of her life—and Ishizu's life, for that matter—that really seemed necessary.

She sat back down beside Mai, who had watched the proceedings with a keen eye. "The Garden of Earthly Delights, huh? Well, excuse me for living, Miss Ishtar, but I'm not familiar with that one."

That's just the problem—no one, no adult, at least, in this… this blasted town has any true interest or knowledge in the fine arts, or even literature… most people don't care about anything beyond their damned gossip networks or petty Domino Town politics.

In fact, if Mrs. Crawford even knew of the painting's existence, she'd no doubt have my head on a platter. Ishizu returned, a bit more curtly than she needed to, "well, neither has anyone else in this town…"

Mai stubbed out her cigarette lazily and lit another, her voice rising in a challenge. "Well, you don't need to be affronted by my lack of knowledge of the subject… I mean, I know they're not exactly your cup of tea, and frankly, not many of them are mine, either, but just because the citizens of Domino Town can't tell a Goya from a Fra Angelico doesn't mean that they've all got this… this low mentality that you think they do…" There she goes again—god, I love you, Ishizu, dear, but you're a damned snob sometimes.

Ishizu's cheeks flamed at having been accurately and precisely called out by her rather astute friend. She found herself blustering rather rudely, she thought, "now, Mai, as long as Mr. Shadi entrusted the art collection to me, not to the town, but for the purpose of improving the town's cultural level, I cannot help but be concerned that none of the ladies of Domino Town will acknowledge me, let alone take my counsel or my advice."

This old topic again—the subject of what must have been a dozen back-and-forth conversations between Mai and her, each growing increasingly heated. While Mai was not particularly loved by the women in town, they at least tolerated her better than they did Ishizu, whom they viewed as having stolen something—the art collection—from their greedy coffers. While Ishizu was isolated in her studio and in her home, teaching students and attempting to care for Marik, Mai enjoyed her work as a City Hall secretary and the attentions of nearly all the eligible single (and married) men in town since her husband, god rest him, had passed, and was at least an agreeable enough personality that many could not find it in their heart of hearts to hate her.

Ishizu Ishtar, on the other hand, with her cold, quiet demeanor, her strange profession as an artist of all things, and her wholly troublesome younger brother, was the real enemy of the ladies of Domino Town, and they made sure she knew of it.

Mai cocked her head and tried to make her voice as gentle as possible. "Well, dear, not saying I agree with them, but they're married. And, well, I'm not married anymore, but I was, and thus they tolerate me. When a woman's married, and you're not, she doesn't see any need to take your advice. Even if you can, oh, I don't know, quote the writings of Leonardo da Vinci, or something, and all those highfalutin artists of yours—"

Ishizu gritted her teeth, knowing that Mai was ultimately right, as she so often was…

"Anyway, now, back to this man with the suitcase of yours…" Mai said, a flirtatious edge in her voice, as she took another languorous drag of her cigarette.

Ishizu flushed despite her best efforts. "You have a terrible habit of changing every subject, Mai…" She leaned back in her chair and hugged her knees to her chest, feeling in that moment oddly exposed and vulnerable, an odd, loopy excitement, mingled with fear curling around and inside her.

The man with the suitcase…

"I'm just saying, honey—this man with the suitcase may be your very last chance…" giggled Mai, covering her mouth in a show of false demureness.

Ishizu rolled her eyes. "Do you not think I have any standards where men are concerned, Mai? My goodness…"

"Well, if you sit around waiting for some knight-artist impresario in shining armor to come whisk you away on his perfect horse, far away from Domino Town into the land of purest love and capital-A Art, then you're going to be waiting a long time, dear…" Mai's tone was part scolding, part humoring of what she viewed as Ishizu's most wistful and unrealistic romantic fantasy.

Ishizu gritted her teeth. "I'm not…"

Yet she had to admit to herself that as far as fantasies went, that didn't sound half bad…

She knows me far too well.

Serenity piped up from the other end of the dining room table. "I think I'd like to take a bit of a break, Miss Ishtar… may I get a drink of water from the backyard pump?"

He's not home… maybe I'll catch him outside? Despite her timidity in such matters, Serenity felt a tiny flicker of warmth in her chest.

Ishizu nodded and rose to her feet. "Of course you may." She walked over to examine Serenity's careful drawings and accompanying stylistic and thematic notes, as she had assigned.

The young girl bowed her head in thanks and walked rather quickly out of the parlor, a skip in her step, into the kitchen, and out of the back door into the yard.

Mai followed her uncharacteristically hasty movements as she exited the house, a knowing smile gracing her reddened lips.

Serenity squinted as the darkness of the night temporarily blinded her, and stumbled a bit on her way to the pump. She reached for the metal cup that hung by the pump and cranked the wooden apparatus a few times, allowing cold, clear water to stream into the cup.

Is he not coming home?

She closed her eyes and tried to stop her heart from beating so quickly as she took a sip of the water, allowing the fresh night air to soak through her skin and rejuvenate her, cool her fluttering and anticipation a bit, if possible…

Suddenly, out of the darkness, the backyard gate creaked open and into the yard trudged the blond, moody, shaggy seventeen-year-old form of Marik Ishtar.

His hair was tied back into a messy tuft under his well-worn cap, his suspenders were thrown off his shoulders, his shirt was grimy about the collar and sleeves, his boots had holes above the big toes, and his eyes were downcast, his face utterly set into its grim expression.

To Serenity Crawford, however, he was perfect—just the way he was.

"He-hello, Marik…" she whispered thickly towards the figure of the boy, who merely raised his head to acknowledge her presence in his yard. He brushed past her like a ghost, threw open the back door, and drifted into the kitchen. Serenity swallowed the last of the water and followed him inside, stomach churning at her own shyness around him, heart hammering through her chest at his nearness.

"Hello, Marik!" called out Mai cheerily as Marik walked quietly, sullenly, through the parlor and towards the staircase towards the upper level.

Ishizu looked up from Serenity's work and, despite her brother's despondent look, couldn't help but smile at him. "Hello, Marik," she murmured, reaching out her arms for him, not caring how dirty and unwashed he always seemed to be these days.

Marik sniffled in response and allowed her to embrace him, standing in the center of the parlor rather passively. His hands hung down uselessly by his sides, chest heavy from something he could not name. His eyes flickered over the room, adjusting to the warm lamp lighting, the familiar chintzy comforts of home.

His eyes settled onto Serenity—her peachy face with her oddly reddened cheeks, those baleful eyes and long, silky hair, that fine embroidered dress and her slender feet… everything with her all sweet and innocent, no knowledge of the kind of misery and darkness that haunted his days and kept him awake at nights… no use in thinking of such a thing.

He cast his eyes down to the floor, sure he had been caught admiring what he, a useless troublemaker, could never hope to hold in his hand.

Serenity took a deep breath, sure she looked like a lovesick fool, and approached him shyly. "Marik?"

Marik looked up from the floor sharply, meeting her eyes and making her nearly convulse. His eyes are so pretty… such a pretty lavender color…

Such a sad face… I wish I could make him smile…

Mai smiled rather broadly, fighting a raucous laugh as Serenity twisted her hands together and asked, "Marik, would you like to go to the soda shop with me tomorrow afternoon?"

You could have knocked Ishizu over with a feather. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head, her jaw lingering somewhere near the floor. She likes Marik?

She likes Marik.

Oh dear. Mrs. Crawford will have me drawn and quartered for this…

Without a reply, Marik turned on his heel and ran up the stairs to his room, the door slamming shut behind him with utter finality.

Serenity blushed, the red color and heat feeling like a cruel punishment for her forthrightness, her foolish, girlish hopes…

"I- I see."

Ishizu's eyes widened in horror at Serenity's downcast look. Even Mai looked thoroughly rattled at the coldness, the pointed absence, rather, of Marik's response.

Oh dear. Oh dear… She doesn't know that he's not… not well…

"Marik, that wasn't polite…" Her words trailed after him uselessly.

Serenity tried not to let the tears well up behind her eyes, her body positively shaking in the uncomfortably heated grip of humiliation and rejection, her stomach feeling uselessly nauseated as Ishizu took her hand gently. Mai rose from her seat, crossed to where the pair of women stood, and squeezed Serenity's shoulder in a rather motherly way.

"Serenity…" Ishizu pulled the girl close to her as Serenity tried desperately not to cry.

"We just need to be patient with Marik, understand?" Ishizu struggled not to let the long-dormant emotions, the worry she carried because of Marik's moods, his humors, his tendency to get in trouble, overwhelm her, come out through her eyes even as Serenity sobbed drily into Ishizu's neck.

"I don't understand… he never says anything to me…" Serenity choked back, inhaling Ishizu's comforting scent of paint and charcoal. "I say goodnight to him in my evening prayers and everything…"

Ishizu closed her eyes wearily, feeling sympathetic pang for Serenity's plight running through her all icy and sharp, as Mai walked back towards her seat.

"Well, dears, this is where I have to head on home," the blonde widow said slowly, measuredly, throwing on her coat with something less than her characteristic flourish. Mai Valentine, as a rule, was not particularly comfortable with emotionally compromising moments, and this one, with Serenity all about to bawl her eyes out over the sad, sad Ishtar boy, certainly qualified as such.

She excused herself from the house as Serenity struggled to let go of Ishizu, her face all streaked red and splotchy from holding in tears.

"Don't cry, Serenity," mumbled Ishizu, not exactly sure where and how to proceed in this most delicate of matters. "If not Marik, then perhaps someone else in the future." God, I hope so. There's nothing worse for her, for us, if Serenity were to really, truly like Marik.

"Never—I'll end up an old maid like you…" The words escaped her lips, cruelly so, before she could stop them.

Ishizu merely bowed her head, biting her lip to stop herself from retorting most inappropriately, with anger and vitriol and frustration towards the stupid statement from her beloved pupil—with anger towards this whole damned mess of a situation.

Is that how she sees me? An old maid?

I suppose it's better than how her mother sees me…

"My goodness, I'm sorry, Miss Ishtar…" Serenity tried to stop from shaking as she sat down in her seat before the charcoal and drawing paper. Now she'll hate me for sure… Miss Ishtar…

She looked back up at her teacher, willing everything to just go back to normal, to quietude and strokes of pencil or pen on paper. The things that kept both of them content "May I continue with the sketch of the Virgin Mary, Miss Ishtar?"

Ishizu took a deep breath, then walked over to where Serenity sat trembling, knees knocking together, awaiting the worst. "I think we should try something else tonight, dear."

Serenity's eyes widened and she interlaced her fingers together, her breath coming in shallowly. "What do you mean, Miss Ishtar?"

Ishizu pulled her chair to sit next to hers and placed a comforting hand upon her pupil's, a kernel of an idea working itself round and round in her head and pleasing her the more she turned it about. "You said that you say goodnight to Marik in your prayers, yes? And it seems like you really, truly like him?"

Serenity flushed a most delicate shade of pink.

That was all the response Ishizu needed. She rose suddenly, walked over to a chest of drawers by the door to the kitchen, and withdrew a wooden box of Faber's drawing pencils—the nicest kind that Ishizu rarely allowed herself to use, let alone her students.

As Serenity's eyes grew ever more round with anticipation and confusion, Ishizu placed the pencils into Serenity's lap with a gentle, genuine smile towards the young girl.

"Draw how you feel."


End file.
